


Before and After

by peculiarmars



Category: Room - Emma Donoghue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-21
Updated: 2017-05-21
Packaged: 2018-11-03 09:28:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10964424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peculiarmars/pseuds/peculiarmars
Summary: Before him she's Joy Newsome, a bright young girl with a good future ahead of her.After him she's no-one. Just a girl who fell for the devil and his sick dog.And then she's Ma.





	Before and After

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger Warning: Non Explicit Rape, Abduction, Captivity.

She's twelve when she hears about it on the news. Sitting squashed between Paul and Dad, watching the news lady rattle off about a thirteen year old girl who disappeared on her way home from school. Mom isn't there, she's at her friends. Dad looks over at her. He doesn't need to say anything. She knows all about stranger danger.

 

She's fourteen when a girl in her year falls pregnant. Stacy and Laura and her spend the entire lunch time gossiping about who the father might be. She feels sorry for the girl, but doesn't say anything. She doesn't even know her. She's just another stranger.

 

She's sixteen when she realises that not everyone is as nice as they seem. A teacher who worked at her high school was arrested for having indecent relations with a student. He's the gym teacher. Joy is horrified and so is every girl (and likely every boy) who ever came into contact with him. He's disgusting.

 

She's seventeen when she hates herself. She thought she knew all about stranger danger, but she was wrong. So wrong. He hates that he's her first. He's the first man to take things from her. She wants to kill him but doesn't know how. She's not entirely sure how long she's been missing, locked in an old shed and discarded. She tried to count the days at first, but as days turned into weeks turned into two weeks into a month and then two then three she stopped -

 

She's seventeen and devises a plan to commit murder. When she was little murder seemed like a terrifying concept. It still is, but for all the wrong reasons. If she fails, she thinks he might just kill her. She'd probably let him.

 

(The plan fails and he doesn't kill her but snaps her wrist and it hurts and he refuses to give her medicine fuck she hates him hates him fuck him fuck everything fuck-)

 

She's eighteen when she starts throwing up when she wakes. It doesn't strike her as unusual at first. She's thrown up after he's been before. Then her periods stop and she's still not worried. She was taught about anorexia in highschool, taught by Stacy and Laura and Heather as they gossiped over magazines with hot boys and far too thin models - and oh how long ago that was now. But then her back starts to ache and her breasts swell and she realises. She stops believing in God after that.

 

(she tells him when he comes in one night, before he takes her over to Bed, blurts it out. Her voice sounds numb. He stares at her and she has the sudden urge to laugh in his face. _"Well, that's just fucking marvellous, isn't it?"_ he says, and then yells and curses at her for the next half an hour, as if this is her fault. She does laugh then, numbly and hollowly, and he smacks her face so hard her ears ring. There is nothing gentle about that night. Or any of the others.)

 

She's eighteen and is sure she's losing her mind. She knows her age, as He gave her a calander, god knows why. Another way to taunt her, she guesses. She tries not to think about it. Instead she thinks about the baby. She tries to trick herself into thinking that everything will be okay. Acts like the baby will grow up like any other normal girl - for she's certain about that - and will be loved and cherished. But then she'll open her eyes and reality will come crashing back down into the four walls of her prison.

 

(Alice is born too early, she knows as soon as she feels her water break. He comes in halfway through, and just watches as she pushes and cries and screams. She wants to scream at him to fuck off back to his pit but she's too exhausted. And then Alice comes out bloody and silent. She knows that something is wrong. He just stands there, watching as she cradles the body of her would-be daughter, shrieking and crying and cursing him with every word she knows)

 

She's nineteen when the days start to mold together again. She'll look up at the skylight sometimes and just watch the sky change colours. Sometimes she won't talk for days on end. He talks to her, and she just shrugs numbly, beyond caring. He's taken things from her and killed things and she just doesn't care. She'd kill herself if she could. He doesn't give her enough medicine - He relented and got some cheap paracetemol a while back, she's not sure when - and the knives aren't sharp and there's nothing to hang herself with.

 

(He drags a small television in one night after some days of silence. Or weeks. She watches it a lot after that. Uses it as background noise mostly. When the silence of Room gets too loud she switches it on and flicks through the channels, always pausing on the news. She watches it continuosly for weeks hoping to catch her name. But there is nothing. The world has long forgotten the girl who fell for the devil and his sick dog.)

 

She's nineteen and she misses her period again. She knows why immediatly. She doesn't need the morning sickness or the back pain to know. They come anyway. She hides it from Him until her stomach starts to swell noticeably. He stares at her and swears. He leaves and doesn't come back for three nights. She's grateful. And then hates herself for feeling even a flicker gratitude towards him. It doesn't take long for her to snuff it out.

 

(she doesn't pretend this time. The baby will most likely die and she knows it. She doesn't try to kid herself that everything will be okay. It most certainly will not. She doesn't guess the baby's gender or name them. He rarely speaks to her about it. He silently brings in some baby clothes and a rattle and a bottle and other things like diapers. He doesn't talk to her anymore.)

 

Her water breaks and this time she tells Him to leave. Shrieks at him to fuck off. She's in too much pain to be suprised when he actually leaves and fucks off. She pushes and pushes for hours and hours and then finally the baby shoots out onto rug, wailing. It takes her a second to realise that the baby is alive. She cradles the baby close and promises herself that no matter what, she will protect him.

 

(She names her son Jack, for no particular reason. The name just clicked the moment he opened his eyes and looked towards her.)

 

~~_(She names her captor Old Nick after Jack is born.)_ ~~

 

_Ma_

 

It's the first word Jack says. He's eight months old, tucked close to her breast as she smiles at him. His face moves into a grin, wriggling slightly, as he then babbles more words that she can't understand.

 

But what she does understand, is that she will never, ever, let Old Nick lay his filthy eyes on her son. Not their son, hers. Jack is no-ones but hers. She would rather spend a thousand years inside this stinking room then let Jack get hurt.

 

From then on, Ma becomes her whole identity. It was Jack's very first word, and she'll be damned if she doesn't protect him from horrors he's old enough to witness but not to know about.

 

_"Ma, will he find us?"_

 

_"No. He will never find us."_

 

~~_I'll kill him before he ever even gets close._ ~~

**Author's Note:**

> I adore both the book and film and have head this in my head for a while.


End file.
